West Virginia Democrat. [volume] (Charles Town, W. Va.) 1885-1890, 1887-03-11
ABOUT POSTAGE STAMPS.
THE BUSINESS OF PHILATELY
AND ITS FOLLOWERS.
The Invention of Postage Stamps--The
First Designs--Stamps of Different
Countries Time Postal
Routes--The United States
Ahead in Variety.

bic property, is still believed in by
many confiding souls, old and young.
Somebody started the fib years ago,
and, being an attractive one, it is
not permitted to die. Touching
stories, without any foundation in
fact, float around in the newspapers
telling how some impoverished old
woman collected 1000, 1000 Of can
celed postage stamps, and then sold
them for money enough to secure
her admittance to q home for aged
women. This has 3 stimulating
effect on other impoverished old wo-
men, and they set to work to collect
stamps, and are overwhelmed with
astonishment and grief when they
find that they might as we'll have
been engaged in polishing-thc stove
legs, as far as any financial benefit
was concerned.
Small boys are often enthusiastic
stamp hunters. They too, cherish
q belief that the stamps can be turn
ed into money. Rare stamps are
marketable, but not often at the fab
ulous prices quoted. In this city
there are collectors who devote
themselves entirely to stamps and
fill whole shops with them, but they
value them on the scoreof rarity, not
quantity.
Certain stamp maniacs make da-
dos and friezes of them, and only
recently the writer saw a small table
covered with them, legs and all, and
then vanished to the ultimate limit
of varnish. Bnt tue spectacle was
hardly a sight to benefit gods and
men. or even fools. The postage
stamp mania, like any other disease,
has name. 1t is called "philately,"
and began as soon rs stamps were
in use in half dozen countries. Big
and numerous are the books devoted
To the literature of the postage
stamp, and several periodicals are
devoted to it, one in Brussels, one
in Berlin, one in England and the
American Journal Of Phiiateiy.now
twenty years old.
Not every one knows that the
postage stamp is a woman's invcn-
ton. a French woman, the Ouch
ess dc Longueville, in 1858, devised
it. But for some reason the idea
diel out for nearly 200 years, and
was then revived. 1t was first advo
Gated in England by Rowland Hill
in 1887. and adopted in 1910. The
first was Il small boy on Il galloping
horse, blowing trumpet, and clad
only in his integrity. He had Il
scarf along with him, but apparent
ly only used it as wrap in cold
weather, for in the picture in floats
out behind him, adding to the APP
pearancc of great haste. This de
sign was in memory Of the days
when Assyrian and Persian mon
archs had their posts placed at sta
tions days journey from each
other, with horses saddled ready to
carry with fleet feet the DEGREES oi
the despot. In the Roman empire
imperial edicts were passed to Tie
provinces by the same means.
The United States took up the
postate stamp in 1S47, not such q
great while ago, after all. The first
stamp bore the head of Benjamin
Franklin, who was efficient in devel'
oping our postal service, and who
was deputy postmaster general OF
the colonies in 1853. 1t represents
| him before he could be called old
1t is said that he was good looking
with fair complexion AMI gray
eyes.
The first adhesive stamp Issue,
by Great Britain consisted of pro
file of the queen with the woru
Postage" above and the value be
low; but other governments saw IL
! this a desecratien of the sovereign
because her face was necessarily
blackened by the cancellation. Bra
zil was the second country which
adopted the system.
1t is also said that the first pro
posed British stamp drawn by Null
ready, was large one representing
/ industrial and commercial life.
The cape of Good Hope. in 1888
adopted three cornered stamp
both novel and pretty. The STAMP
of Afghanistan is meaningless to al
American, while that OF Japan
with its dainty tea leaves, is grace
full and beautiful. In 1869 thu
United States issued a twenty-fou'
cert stamp, which is n miniature
representation of the signing Of tht
Declaration Independence.
The perforating machine was AZ
English invention. which was n
once almost universally adopted.
The colors OF postage stamps var,
continually, the why and wherefore
thereof none but the postmaster gen
eral and his creator knows. Th'
style of printing on white pape'
Nth colored ink is considered nggl